


square zero minus one

by idaate



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 18:06:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11651871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idaate/pseuds/idaate
Summary: [ SPOILERS FOR CH1 OF V3 ]Akamatsu is gone. Saihara deals with those who aren't.





	square zero minus one

**Author's Note:**

> My gift for sparesandwich for the v3 Christmas in July gift exchange.

The room rocks as Saihara falls face first into his bed, his head spinning as he breathes in the smell of the covers. They’re freshly cleaned, detergent stuffing itself up his nose, which brings a dull amount of surprise into his mind. At another point in time, he might’ve sat up and reevaluated the situation, wondering  _ who  _ in the  _ world  _ had decided to make their way into his room and clean his sheets and when they had the time to accomplish such a feat in the first place, but instead he finds himself rolling over and pulling the blankets over his shaking frame.

Apparently, whoever had cleaned his sheets while he was away had done so in vain, because Saihara finds salty tears and mucus running down his face in tired, disgusting waves as he thinks about the chain wrapping itself round, round, round Akamatsu’s neck and condemning her to her crushing (ha! he mustn't be  _ that  _ sad, if he was able to make jokes about the matter) demise.

He inhales shakily and tries to steady himself - he needs to get up and change and such, after all, can’t sleep in his clothes - but whether it be physically or mentally (or both) he finds himself far, far too tired to do anything more than curl up in himself and  _ breathe. _

Some corner of his mind alerts him of the knocking on the door of his room and the calls of “Saihara-chan? Are you there?”, but all he does is pull the blankets closer around his frame and lets himself drift off, off, off to sleep. 

It’s a dreamless sleep, for once, and Saihara is more than thankful.

 

.

 

“Sai-hara-chan!” says Ouma a day after Akamatsu’s demise. 

The detective looks up from the meal Tojo had placed down before him only moments beforehand, letting out a thinly disguised sigh of annoyance. “Hello, Ouma-kun,” he says, “is there something you need?”

“Ah! I just wanted to spend some time with my beloved.” Ouma sits next to him, swinging his legs to and fro. “I tried knocking on your door yesterday, but you didn’t come out! Which made me  _ incredibly,  _ super-duper sad!” The boy pouts. “I went out of my way to go and see you, and you didn’t even answer the door! How  _ cruel,  _ Saihara-chan. Do you really despise hanging out with me that much?”

“...No,” Saihara says after a couple moments. “I was just really tired yesterday, and fell asleep nearly immediately. Sorry.”

Ouma laughs and pats him on the back. “That was a lie, obviously! I knew you were sleeping.” He sticks out his tongue and pulls down his eyelid. “Sleep is important, so I’m glad you got some! But, if you really  _ are  _ feeling bad about not answering my knock on the door…” Ouma taps his chin. “You can repay me by spending the  _ entire  _ day with me! Won’t it be fun?”

Saihara stares at him a beat before glancing back down at his meal. “A-actually, I really need to work on investigating the new areas Monokuma opened up...I’m the detective, after all.” He’s got to be of some use. He’s got to make himself of some use.

“Well then, why don’t we just investigate together!” Ouma lifts one of his hands in a stiff mock salute. “Two pairs of eyes are better than one, right? And two brains! And two noses and two mouths and two pairs of feet and hands...bigger is better and better is bigger!” 

Saihara nearly says something back, nearly states how it would be  _ incredibly  _ distracting to have Ouma by his side and how it would be better to leave him to his own thoughts, but he simply doesn’t have the strength to argue. He shrugs and sighs. “You know what, sure. Maybe we’ll,” he waves a hand, “cover more ground, I dunno.”

Ouma practically  _ squeals  _ like a child and drags Saihara away from the cafeteria despite the detective’s protests, going on and on about how much  _ fun  _ they were going to have and how  _ lucky  _ Saihara was to be spending time with the super evil supreme leader, Ouma Kokichi, oops if he spilled any more secrets then he would have to kill his beloved Saihara-chan and that wasn’t an optimal situation for either of them, honestly!

It isn’t until they’ve finished their investigation and Saihara has retreated to the shelter of his room before he realizes that Ouma had managed to keep his mind completely preoccupied for the duration of their time spent together. 

Saihara stares at the ceiling and counts the number of holes that he can make himself imagine are there.

 

.

 

There’s a knock on his door six days after Akamatsu’s demise, and unlike the first time, Saihara answers it. Ouma’s on the other side.

“Uwaa, it’s Saihara-chan! What a surprise!” he says.

“Ouma-kun, this is my room.”

“So it is!” Ouma puts his hands behind his back and leans in. “Yep, definitely, most certainly, is a hundred percent your room! How things seem to have ended up. Well, now that I’m here,” the boy leans back, stretches, yawns, “why don’t we hang out? Since you’re here too, so it would just be easier for us both to combine our efforts. Or something.”

Saihara stares at him tiredly before rubbing his eyes. “Ouma-kun, I just woke up…”

“Oh! Then I’ll wait.” Ouma pushes past Saihara and walks into his room, and Saihara is too stunned to respond. “Wow, Saihara-chan! Your room sure is,” a pause, “roomy!”

“It’s the same as...everyone else’s rooms, right?” Saihara says.

“So it is!” Ouma repeats, and puts his hands behind his head as he whistles and walks around the room. “Hey hey, Saihara-chan? What if I spent the night with you?”

“Wh-what?” Saihara sputters, and Ouma laughs.

“That was a lie, of course! I’m not going to spend the night with you. I prefer my room way too much for that.” Ouma belly flops face first onto Saihara’s bed with a loud  _ whomp.  _ “Ah, but Saihara-chan’s bed does feel nice, though!” 

“Ouma-kun...why did you come here?” Saihara says tiredly, and Ouma looks up with a small pout.

“Mm? Do you not want to hang out with me? Even though I love my beloved Saihara-chan so much, and I’m so lonely after Amami-chan died…”

Saihara flinches.

“But I love Saihara-chan so so  _ so  _ much! So I want to hang out with him.” Ouma flips himself entirely around and sits up. “And that most definitely isn’t a lie! Or is it?” He taps his chin. “Who knows? I don’t! Or do I?”

Ouma laughs and Saihara pinches the space between his eyes.

 

.

 

He catches his reflection smiling only eleven days after Akamatsu’s demise and Saihara has to take a double take. It’s not a wide grin - not like he’s really  _ ever  _ had that sort of a smile, even before she had passed away - but that fact that there’s any sort of emotion on his face that doesn’t scream ‘depression’ gives him pause.

The detective looks at his face a little bit longer, smoothing back his hair and moving away his bangs and-- oh, there was a pimple on his hairline. He scowls and runs his fingers over it, grimacing as he feels the all-too-large bump.

It’s as he’s doing this that Ouma walks into the room and says “ah, what do we have here?” and Saihara feels a strange rush of warmth blossom in his chest, a rush he didn’t feel since Akamatsu had passed away. Something is wrong.

“Popping pimples, Saihara-chan?” Ouma leans in and pokes Saihara’s cheek. Saihara just stares. “That’s no good, no good! Don’t you know that popping pimples leaves scars? I don’t want my beloved Saihara-chan to get ugly scars all over his face! Blegh.” He sticks out his tongue. “Of course, I’ll love Saihara-chan forever, no matter  _ what, _ with or without ugly pimple scars on his face!”

“Hey, Ouma-kun,” Saihara says, “when you refer to me as your beloved, do you...actually mean that?”

For a split second that Saihara can’t see, Ouma’s expression is completely blank and unreadable. Then he says “Yes,” then “no,” then “maybe? Saihara-chan has to figure that out himself!”

Ouma laughs and skips away. Saihara feels his pimple and, after a few seconds, pops it. The unpleasant sting and ache it leaves isn’t exactly something he enjoys.

 

.

 

“It’s alright, you know,” Tenko says offhandedly two weeks after Akamatsu’s demise, and Saihara glances over at her in confusion. It’s late in the evening, and with nowhere else to go, Saihara finds his feet leading him back here -  _ here  _ being the cafeteria, the place that’s become more of a gathering spot and a place to socialize as much as it’s become a place to grab something to eat.

“Alright to...what?” Saihara answers the question with one of his own after waiting a couple seconds too long, and he curses himself for making the situation awkward. Tenko doesn’t seem to mind, however.

“Alright to love someone else. After, well,” she pauses as if trying to settle on a kinder phrasing, “Akamatsu-san died. You’re not betraying her in any way. In fact, Tenko thinks that she’d want you to be happier with someone else rather than constantly dwelling on her death and being stuck in a standstill.”

Saihara stares at her for a couple seconds, mind coming to a sputtering halt before stating “I don’t love anyone.”

“Tenko’s calling bull,” the aikido master sighs. “She’s seen a lot of people in love in her day, herself included. And Saihara-san is most  _ definitely  _ one of those people that you might dub as ‘completely infatuated’.” She makes air quotations around the last bit, snorting slightly. “Even if you are a disgusting boy, Tenko can’t bear to see you like this.”

“L-like  _ what?”  _ Saihara sputters. “I’m...not acting any differently,” a pause, “a-am I?”

Tenko gives the detective a long, hard stare, one that makes Saihara shuffle underneath her gaze and cough awkwardly. She sighs and stands up. 

“Akamatsu-san is gone, Saihara-san,” she says gently. “Ouma-san isn’t. Not yet. Do what you want to before you regret it.”

She walks away with long, brisk steps and Saihara is left alone.

 

.

 

It’s nearly three weeks after Akamatsu’s demise before Saihara plucks up all the bits and scraps of courage that he has ever had in his life and takes pen to paper, writing the most cliche words that he probably ever will. His stomach sinks.

This may be dumb and hopeless, but at least he can say he tried. 

He attempts to slip it underneath Ouma’s door, you know, like in the movies, but before he can do so Ouma swings the door open and hits Saihara directly in the face, knocking the detective backwards and causing him to stare up at the ceiling, dazed.

“O-oh!” Ouma says, sounding genuinely surprised for a moment before he recollects himself. “Saihara-chan! Did you get a boo boo? What were  _ you  _ doing outside my door, actually?” There’s a pause. “Yeah, that’s super strange. Just standing outside my door - you’ve  _ certainly  _ never done that before, have you? I don’t think anyone has!”

Saihara slowly lifts himself up, and Ouma offers him a hand that he’s too embarrassed to take. “H-hey, I,” he swallows. “I...uhm. Wanted to give you a letter.”

Ouma blinks, then grins. “Aha! It must be a confession of love, then? I’m  _ so  _ touched that my beloved Saihara-chan reciprocates my feelings!”

“Actually,” says Saihara, “it...it is.”

Ouma stares at him, his face the blankest that Saihara has ever seen it. He stares back, feeling sweat already creeping down the back of his neck unpleasantly. He swallows and averts his gaze. “I, I know you were probably joking because that’s...what you do, so I apologize if this brought up any awkward tensions between us,” he says. “However, it was something that’s been on my chest for a while so I just wanted to. Get it out there.”

Ouma continues to stare.

“I know we haven’t even known each other for that long either, but...this is a  _ killing  _ game we’re trapped in. Either one of us could be killed or,” (he wants to say ‘kill’ but he would  _ never  _ do that and he doesn’t think ouma would either but he didn’t think akamatsu would and look where she ended up) “one of us could  _ die  _ at the drop of a pin and I don’t want to. Live with anymore regrets.” He inhales deeply. “Not anymore.”

“Oh,” says Ouma simply.

“If you don’t reciprocate, that’s fine, of course.” Saihara gathers up the courage to look Ouma in the eyes once again. His gaze continues to be unreadable. “But...well, I got that out there. So I can cross that off of my bucket list.”

Saihara turns on his heel and begins to walk away, already cursing himself for his idiocy because why did he think this would accomplish anything in the first place, Ouma was just going to tell everyone and make fun of him and he would be back at square one, no, even further back than that, square  _ zero-- _

Ouma grabs his wrist, spins him around, and kisses him on the lips.


End file.
